The difficulty of getting rid of Meeran being thus removed, Mr. Vansittart comes upon the scene. I verily believe he was a man of good intentions, and rather debauched by that amazing flood of iniquity which prevailed at that time, or hurried and carried away with it. In a few days he sent for Major Calliaud. All his objections vanish in an instant: like
that flash of lightning, everything is instant. The Major agrees to perform his part. They send for Cossim Ali Khân and Mr. Hastings; they open a treaty and conclude it with him, leaving the management of it to two persons, Mr. Holwell and another person, whom we have heard of, an Armenian, called Coja Petruse, who afterwards played his part in another illustrious scene. By this Petruse and Mr. Holwell the matter is settled. The moment Mr. Holwell is raised to be a Secretary of State, the revolution is accomplished. By it Cossim Ali Khân is to have the lieutenancy at present, and the succession. Everything is put into his hands, and he is to make for it large concessions, which you will hear of afterwards, to the Company. Cossim Ali Khân proposed to Mr. Holwell, what would have been no bad supplement to the flash of lightning, the murder of the Nabob; but Mr. Holwell was a man of too much honor and conscience to suffer that. He instantly flew out at it, and declared the whole business should stop, unless the affair of the murder was given up. Accordingly things were so settled. But if he gave the Nabob over to an intended murderer, and delivered his person, treasure, and everything into his hands, Cossim Ali Khân might have had no great reason to complain of being left to the execution of his own projects in his own way. The treaty was made, and amounted to this,—that the Company was to receive three great provinces: for here, as we proceed, you will have an opportunity of observing, with the progress of these plots, one thing which has constantly and uniformly pervaded the whole of these projects, and which the persons concerned in them have avowed as a principle of their actions,—that
they were first to take care of the Company's interest, then of their own; that is, first to secure to the Company an enormous bribe, and under the shadow of that bribe to take all the little emoluments they could to themselves. Three great, rich, southern provinces, maritime, or nearly maritime, Burdwan, Midnapoor, and Chittagong, were to be dissevered from the Subah and to be ceded to the Company. There were other minor stipulations, which it is not necessary at present to trouble you with, signed, sealed, and executed at Calcutta between these parties with the greatest possible secrecy. The lieutenancy and the succession were secured to Cossim Ali, and he was likewise to give somewhere about the sum of 200,000l. to the gentlemen who were concerned, as a reward for serving him so effectually, and for serving their country so well. Accordingly, these stipulations, actual or understood, (for they were eventually carried into effect,) being settled, a commission of delegation, consisting chiefly of Mr. Vansittart and Major Calliaud, was sent up to Moorshedabad: the new Governor taking this opportunity of paying the usual visit of respect to the Nabob, and in a manner which a new Governor coming into place would do, with the detail of which it is not necessary to trouble you. Mr. Hastings was at this time at the durbar; and having everything prepared, and the ground smoothed, they first endeavored to persuade the Nabob to deliver over the power negotiated for into the hands of their friend Cossim Ali Khân. But when the old man, frightened out of his wits, asked, "What is it he has bid for me?" and added, "I will give half as much again to save myself; pray let me know what my price is,"—he entreated in vain. They were true,
firm, and faithful to their word and their engagement. When he saw they were resolved that he should be delivered into the hands of Cossim Ali Khân, he at once surrenders the whole to him. They instantly grasp it. He throws himself into a boat, and will not remain at home an hour, but hurries down to Calcutta to leave his blood at our door, if we should have a mind to take it. But the life of the Nabob was too great a stake (partly as a security for the good behavior of Cossim Ali Khân, and still more for the future use that might be made of him) to be thrown away, or left in the hands of a man who would certainly murder him, and who was very angry at being refused the murder of his father-in-law. The price of this second revolution was, according to their shares in it, (I believe I have it here,) somewhere about 200,000l. This little effusion to private interest settled the matter, and here ended the second revolution in the country: effected, indeed, without bloodshed, but with infinite treachery, with infinite mischief, consequent to the dismemberment of the country, and which had nearly become fatal to our concerns there, like everything else in which Mr. Hastings had any share.
This prince, Cossim Ali Khân, the friend of Mr. Hastings, knew that those who could give could take away dominion. He had scarcely got upon the throne, procured for him by our public spirit and his own iniquities, than he began directly and instantly to fortify himself, and to bend all his politics against those who were or could be the donors of such fatal gifts. He began with the natives who were in their interest, and cruelly put to death, under the eye of Mr. Hastings and his clan, all those who, by their
moneyed wealth or landed consideration, could give any effect to their dispositions in favor of those ambitious strangers. He removed from Moorshedabad higher up into the country, to Monghir, in order to be more out of our view. He kept his word pretty well, but not altogether faithfully, with the gentlemen; and though he had no money, for his treasury was empty, he gave obligations which are known by the name of jeeps—(the Indian vocabulary will by degrees become familiar to your Lordships, as we develop the modes and customs of the country). As soon as he had done this, he began to rack and tear the provinces that were left to him, to get as much from them as should compensate him for the revenues of those great provinces he had lost; and accordingly he began a scene of extortion, horrible, nefarious, without precedent or example, upon almost all the landed interest of that country. I mention this, because he is one of those persons whose governments Mr. Hastings, in a paper called his Defence, delivered in to the House of Commons, has produced as precedents and examples which he has thought fit to follow, and which he thought would justify him in the conduct he has pursued. This Cossim Ali Khân, after he had acted the tyrant on the landed interest, fell upon the moneyed interest. In that country there was a person called Juggut Seit. There were several of the family, who were bankers to such a magnitude as was never heard of in the world. Receivers of the public revenue, their correspondence extended all over Asia; and there are those who are of opinion that the house of Juggut Seit, including all its branches, was not worth less than six or seven millions sterling. This house became the prey of
Cossim Ali Khân; but Mr. Holwell had predicted that it should be delivered over to Satan to be buffeted (his own pious expression). He predicted the misfortunes that should befall them; and we chose a Satan to buffet them, and who did so buffet them, by the murder of the principal persons of the house, and by robbing them of great sums of their wealth, that I believe such a scene of nefarious tyranny, destroying and cutting up the root of public credit in that country, was scarce ever known. In the mean time Cossim was extending his tyranny over all who were obnoxious to him; and the persons he first sought were those traitors who had been friends to the English. Several of the principal of these he murdered. There was in the province of Bahar a man named Ramarain; he had got the most positive assurances of English faith; but Mr. Macguire, a member of the Council, on the receipt of five thousand gold mohurs, or something more than 8,000l. sterling, delivered him up to be first imprisoned, then tortured, then robbed in consequence of the torture, and finally murdered, by Cossim Ali Khân. In this way Cossim Ali Khân acted, while our government looked on. I hardly choose to mention to you the fate of a certain native in consequence of a dispute with Mr. Mott, a friend of Mr. Hastings, which is in the Company's records,—records which are almost buried by their own magnitude from the knowledge of this country. In a contest with this native for his house and property, some scuffle having happened between the parties, the one attempting to seize and the other to defend, the latter made a complaint to the Nabob, who was in an entire subjection at that time to the English, and who ordered this unfortunate man, on
account of this very scuffle, arising from defending his property, to be blown off from the mouth of a cannon. In short, I am not able to tell your Lordships of all the nefarious transactions of this man, whom the intrigues of Mr. Holwell and Mr. Hastings had set upon the throne of Bengal. But there is a circumstance in this business that comes across here, and will tend to show another grievance that vexed that country, which vexed it long, and is one of the causes of its chief disasters, and which, I fear, is not so perfectly extirpated but that some part of its roots may remain in the ground at this moment.
Commerce, which enriches every other country in the world, was bringing Bengal to total ruin. The Company, in former times, when it had no sovereignty or power in the country, had large privileges under their dustuck, or permit: their goods passed, without paying duties, through the country. The servants of the Company made use of this dustuck for their own private trade, which, while it was used with moderation, the native government winked at in some degree; but when it got wholly into private hands, it was more like robbery than trade. These traders appeared everywhere; they sold at their own prices, and forced the people to sell to them at their own prices also. It appeared more like an army going to pillage the people, under pretence of commerce, than anything else. In vain the people claimed the protection of their own country courts. This English army of traders in their march ravaged worse than a Tartarian conqueror. The trade they carried on, and which more resembled robbery than commerce, anticipated the resources of the tyrant, and threatened to leave him no mate
rials for imposition or confiscation. Thus this miserable country was torn to pieces by the horrible rapaciousness of a double tyranny. This appeared to be so strong a case, that a deputation was sent to him at his new capital, Monghir, to form a treaty for the purpose of giving some relief against this cruel, cursed, and oppressive trade, which was worse even than the tyranny of the sovereign. This trade Mr. Vansittart, the President about this time, that is, in 1763, who succeeded to Mr. Holwell, and was in close union of interests with the tyrant Cossim Ali Khân, by a treaty known by the name of the treaty of Monghir, agreed very much to suppress and to confine within something like reasonable bounds. There never was a doubt on the face of that treaty, that it was a just, proper, fair transaction. But as nobody in Bengal did then believe that rapine was ever forborne but in favor of bribery, the persons who lost every advantage by the treaty of Monghir, when they thought they saw corrupt negotiation carrying away the prizes of unlawful commerce, and were likely to see their trade crippled by Cossim Ali Khân, fell into a most violent fury at this treaty; and as the treaty was made without the concurrence of the rest of the Council, the Company's servants grew divided: one part were the advocates of the treaty, the other of the trade. The latter were universally of opinion that the treaty was bought for a great sum of money. The evidence we have on our records of the sums of money that are stated to have been paid on this occasion has never been investigated to the bottom; but we have it on record, that a great sum (70,000l.) was paid to persons concerned in that negotiation. The